


go forward slowly, it's not a race to the end

by oceaes



Category: Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe - Benjamin Alire Sáenz
Genre: Character Study, Introspection, M/M, Mid-Canon, ari's thoughts in the hospital, kinda not really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-02
Updated: 2019-05-02
Packaged: 2020-02-15 19:56:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18676387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oceaes/pseuds/oceaes
Summary: Ari remembers the car swerving around the corner and Dante’s broken-winged bird. Remembers Dante in the middle of the road and yelling Dante’s name. And then he remembers waking up. Not pushing, not thinking about pushing or thinking about anything.Ari doesn’t like thinking.--He spends a long time in the hospital, has a new visitor every day. Ari has a lot of time to think during the hours in between.





	go forward slowly, it's not a race to the end

**Author's Note:**

> hello hello i wrote this a long ass time ago but i just re-read this book for the 1209573016th time and decided to edit and upload this!
> 
> hope you enjoy :)
> 
> (title from 'You're Somebody Else' by flora cash )

Ari doesn’t like hospitals.

And adults, and flowers, and lies, and Double-stuffed Oreos.

And Ari doesn’t like thinking, doesn’t remember a time when he ever did. Which is maybe why he doesn’t like hospitals so much. Which is maybe why other people don’t like hospitals so much.

Ari doesn’t like pretending to know what other people think.

He meets his surgeon on the first day and the neurologist on the last, and on the days in between, when his parents have to work and Dante has to leave, Ari has nothing to do except countdown the minutes between nurse’s visits. And think. Ari thinks a lot in the hospital, about thinking and flowers and Double-Stuffed Oreos.

And Dante. Ari thinks a lot about Dante in the hospital.

He thinks about Dante now. Tries to remember that night, the colour of the car or the colour of the bird but he can’t.

_(“You could have died.” His surgeon and his mom and his dad and practically everyone else tells him.”)_

He doesn’t think about that.

Ari dreams a lot, too.

On the first day, he dreams about his mom and dad, his sisters. On the first day he dreams about his brother. He’s never seen his brother, but that’s what he imagines he’d look like. Like his mom. Like his sisters. He remembers dreaming about them all being home and all being near.

And he remembers being afraid.

He dreams every time he falls asleep, it’s a wonder he still manages to be afraid of them. It’s a wonder he still manages to be afraid of anything, really.

_(“Breathe, Ari” Sylvia had told him when he had woken her up screaming one night. The nightmares came long before but they came all at once. When Ari was little, he wondered if he would ever run out of things to scramble his mind when he closed his eyes._

_Sylvia sat on his bed, brushed his hair with her fingers and Ari remembers wishing that she’d never stop. “Let it run its course, Aristotle.” she had said, “I’m right here.”_

But will you be here in the morning?

_“Love you,” she mumbled as she pressed her lips to his forehead. “Don’t be afraid, Ari; I love you.”)_

He still doesn’t quite know what that had meant. Doesn’t know how her love meant fighting off dreams that take root in his stomach and twist him up in his sheets, but when he fell back asleep that night, he dreamt of nothing at all.

 _“Don’t be afraid, Ari; I love you,”_ she had said to him. What she hadn’t understood was that Ari was afraid of love, too.

He lolls his head to the side and stares directly at the drawing Dante had made for him during the thirty-six hours when Ari was asleep and Dante was so so awake. Dante had tucked it under Ari’s pillow when he blinked or fell asleep, graphite smudges of two boys holding hands and ari squeezes his eyes shut.

Because some things he’s too afraid to even think about. Let alone _love._

_(“We sort of match,” Dante said. After that night. After the thirty-six hour sleep. After, after, after.)_

_We sort of match._

But they don’t match at all.

Dante wears his heart on his sleeve, like a broken wing or a broken arm. Dante feels and Dante likes feeling. Ari doesn’t even think. Doesn’t let himself think or feel or wonder and it’s better this way. Where no one can touch him because no one can make him _feel_. He thinks of his brother and wills himself to feel nothing and that’s the way it has to be. The way it’s always been.

On the third day, or the fourth or the last, Ari couldn’t say, he dreams about running, about Legs and Dante and neither of them are wearing shoes but his feet feel heavy, sticky. Like he’s running through molasses.

He wakes up afraid, because his feet still feel heavy, sticky, but not because he’s running through molasses, it’s because he can’t move them. it's because they _hurt_. Ari thinks they'll hurt forever. They’re both wrapped in a cast, just like his arm. Just like Dante’s arm.

_(“You pushed me,” Dante sobbed when Ari woke up. Dante and his tears.)_

Ari remembers the car swerving around the corner and Dante’s broken-winged bird. Remembers Dante in the middle of the road and yelling Dante’s name. And then he remembers waking up. Not pushing, not thinking about pushing or thinking about anything.

Ari doesn’t like thinking.

_(“You pushed me and you saved my life.”)_

And Ari doesn’t like being the hero.

He wonders if he would’ve still pushed Dante if he _had_ thought about it. If he had thought about Dante falling on his face or Dante breaking his arm or Dante Dante _Dante_.

He wonders if he would’ve still pushed Dante if he had thought about himself. About his legs being crushed and his arm being fractured. There are metal rods in his legs that will be there forever and Ari thinks that might scare him to think about.

So maybe he didn’t think before pushing Dante out of the way. And maybe he doesn’t want to think about _why_.

_(“Don't be afraid_ _, I love you.”)_

Ari wonders what happened to the bird. The little bird with the broken wing that nearly got him and Dante killed. Dante’s little broken bird.

 _Dante's broken bird,_ Ari thinks, _Dante and his broken arm and Dante's bird with his broken wing and they match so much more than Dante and I do._

They sort of match.

_(“I think you’re a very rare young man,” Ari’s surgeon tells him on day three. )_

But he isn’t. Because one of the secrets of the universe is that people that save dying birds, people who wear their heart on their sleeves and people who cry when their friend wakes up in the hospital are the rare ones in the world.

 _Dante is a very rare young man._ Ari couldn’t just let that go to waste.

On the last day, Ari gets his casts cut off. His legs aren’t fully healed, and he’s not allowed to walk back to the car by himself, but it’s the freest he’s been in almost a month. It’s the most normal he’s felt in almost forever.

His surgeon tells him that he won’t be fully healed for another two weeks. He still can’t swim or run or go see Dante, but he can live outside the shoebox the hospital is built in. He thinks that counts for something.

There are still metal bars in his legs, and it’s not lost to him that they’ll never leave. That he'll have to re-learn to exist and others will have to learn it for the first time.

So maybe his surgeon is wrong. Maybe he’ll never heal. Not fully.

Maybe he’ll just have to learn to live between hurting and healing.

Maybe everyone does.

 


End file.
